Jordan: Day 2 in Madaba, Mt Nebo, Dead Sea

We got to talking with one of the taxi drivers on one of our jaunts in Amman the day before and he showed us a paragraph in Lonely Planet which introduced him as a good tour guide (allegedly). Anyway he gave us a good price for a day trip to a few sites outside of Amman so we made plans for him to pick us up the next day at 8 am. 

First stop was the Moabite town of Madaba. 

We only made one stop here - the Greek Orthodox church St George's church aka The Church with the map. 

All the Christian art in the church was made with mosaic. The details and scale were pretty amazing.

But the star attraction was the mosaic map -it depicted Jerusalem in the 6th century in great detail.

It showed the Jordan River, Bethlehem, Jericho, Gaza etc.

Typical scenery along the road...

The taxi driver insisted that we stopped by a souvenir shop on the way.

Damon was shown how to wear the traditional scarf worn by the Bedouins.

Arrrgggggggh it's Arafat!!!!!!!!!!

Next we went to Mount Nebo.

Mt Nebo is the place where Moses saw the Promised Land just before he died.

Again, there was a giant slab of mosaic flooring on display.

The Promised Land is pretty darn gorgeous.

Panoramic view taken by Damon:

After that, we visited the spot where Jesus was baptised by John the Baptist.

Waiting for the tourist bus to take us closer to the site.

Walking enroute to the pool.

The landscape was pretty harsh and I can see why John had to survive on locusts and honey.

Ta daaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I had to take a shot with the pool obviously...

We ended up at the Jordan River and the river acted as a border between Jordan and Iran!! I gotta say, the Iranians were living it up compared to the Jordanians.

I took sneaky photos of old men taking a dip in the river.

Yet another Greek Orthodox church next to the river.

Last stop for the day - a swimming pool with access to the Dead Sea..

People rubbing dead sea mud all over themselves. I wanted to but didn't have money on me.

Salt crystals on the pebbly beach...

The water was very buoyant thanks to the salt content and the boys had fun posing for. The water was only inches from their bums but they could fully float.

Only photo of me in the Dead Sea... don't get me started.

Pasty white skin on show.

We got back to Amman and was starving! Lamb dish

Fried chicken....

This was a local Jordanian dish... can't remember the name now. It was goat meat with some sort of a yoghurty sauce. Looked a bit offputting but it was melt-in-your-mouth tender.

We wandered around a bit and stumbled across a famous sweets shop so obviously i had to.

This was the Middle Eastern version of cheesecake to me. It was sweet and cheesy with rosewater. Conclusion - I don't like it.

Also walked past a lot of biscuit shops so I went in and pointed at a few things. The boy serving us kept going!! I was worried I had inadvertently spent a fortune on snacks but it was only 4 pounds for what felt like kilos worth of biscuits. They turned out to be a very good buy. More on this to come.